www.ilyameyer.com – English

Amnesty International Supports Arab Muslim Apartheid in Lebanon. And Yemen. And Saudi Arabia. And other Gulf States.

Anti-Semitism International, a racist ’NGO’ that without any trace of irony sometimes goes by the name Amnesty International, has produced a new report about “systemic racism”.

No, the report does not deal with the Arab state of Lebanon, where Palestinian Arabs now in their 3rd generation are banned by law from engaging in certain professions, or owning property,

No, the report does not deal with Sunni Arab Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf Arab Muslim states where foreign – mostly Asian – workers are systematically abused, their passports withheld and their hard-earned pay denied after months of service to rich Gulf families.

No, the report does not deal with Shia Muslim Iran which systematically executes gays, political dissidents, and women demanding their right not to be raped within or outside the marital home.

No, the report does not deal with Arab Muslim Yemen’s Shia Houthi militia which is guilty of multiple attacks against civilian targets in neighbouring Sunni states.

And of course no, the report does not deal with Arab Muslim Hamas’s indiscriminate attacks against civilian targets – including infants asleep in their cots – selected solely on account of their Jewish religion and ethnicity. Attacks by car-ramming, arson, knife, gun, grenade, mortar and rocket. More than 5000 rockets against exclusively civilian Israeli targets in the latest round of violence the terrorist rulers of Gaza unleashed in 2021.

Instead, the report by Anti-Semitism International only deals with allegations of Israeli ‘apartheid’ – allegations that are as unsubstantiated as they are overtly anti-Semitic.

The selective maltreatment of Jewish individuals, Jewish organisations, the Jewish collective or the world’s sole Jewish state Israel is specifically defined by both the EU and the US – and adopted by the UN – as anti-Semitic. As such, Anti-Semitism International, aka Amnesty International, truly lives up to both its name and its reputation. It delivers exactly what it has been funded to do – anti-Semitism.

Here are a couple of the key definitions of anti-Semitism as adopted by the EU, the US State Department, the UN and other world bodies:

• “Manifestations (of anti-Semitism) might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.”
• “Applying double standards by requiring of it (Israel) a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

Since the Anti-Semitism International report deals with no other subject than vilification of the Jewish state of Israel, it is the very embodiment of an anti-Semitic organisation. A well-funded anti-Semitic organisation.

The one proven way to prevent systemic abuse of funding and support is to withdraw both.

A world community that pays lip service to the fight against anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, but then ignores anti-Semitism, is doing both its reputation and its future untold harm.

Because ultimately, the battle isn’t only about anti-Semitism.

It isn’t even about racism on a more global scale.

It is about the very foundation of what makes a society ethical. The purveyors of this bilge are watching with keen interest to see whether or not they encounter any substantial resistance by the world community.

If this report passes unchallenged, it will set the tone for worse infractions on our collective moral code further down the line.

“Hope Reborn” by accomplished author Michelle Mazel is the sequel to the first of her books featuring the World War Two exploits of Hungarian Jewish émigré Julius Matthias, “A Pact with the Devil”. Despite this being a sequel, Mazel gets down to the storyline refreshingly quickly, with quick-fire recouping of past events seamlessly woven into the new story.

As before, this latest offering is a deeply detailed understanding of a world long gone. Both the historic aspects and the social mores of a bygone era are related with gusto and respect for standards of the era. There are detail-rich descriptions and Michelle Mazel gives proof of an encyclopaedic knowledge about the subject which she relates with effortless flair and zest.

She skilfully weaves the intricate details of personal tragedies – and triumphs – into the tapestry of a global conflict set against the background of overarching political and military events.

“Hope Reborn” is not just about WW2, It’s also about scourges that still afflict society to this very day – personal animosities, national conflicts, anti-Semitism, entrenched elitism. All bound up in a cracking story that makes this book a page-turner. You don’t read it as a current-affairs social commentary but as an exciting story of past events told in vivid colour. Nonetheless, a reader with an ear keenly attuned to the world of today cannot help relating the story’s underlying personal and historical struggles to events and trends currently being played out on television screens every evening.

Michelle Mazel has an uncanny ability to keep interest alive with plenty of little side-stories and flashbacks all feeding into the main story to keep interest bubbling from page one to the very end.

A highly worthwhile read.
I’d give it a 5-star rating.

Rating: *****
Review by: Ilya Meyer

Within the next few days I will be closing down my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

I’m currently busy copying and saving what I want to keep.

I will continue with the Signal and Telegram platforms, to which I migrated a couple of years ago.

I remain committed to raising 4000 US dollars this year for the wonderful Alyn paediatric hospital and rehab centre in Jerusalem, the eternal and undivided capital of Israel. So far I’m up to about USD3300 and counting. Alyn provides amazing care irrespective of gender, political affiliation, religion or skin colour, as is customary in the Jewish state but nowhere else in the Middle East. To sponsor me as I ride my bicycle to raise money for Alyn, visit https://www.alynactive.org/event/ride/?type=sponsor and click on my name Ilya Meyer to donate as little or as much as you like – every donation is passed on in its entirety and received with equal gratitude. Or message me (still available on Facebook Messenger for the next few days) for my Alyn bank details/Swish account.

As always, my three political thrillers in the Hart Trilogy – Bridges Going Nowhere, The Threat Beneath and From The Shadows, are still available online. Read them in the above order! All three can be ordered as Kindle or paperback, from a variety of sources such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bokus et al. Little did I know back in 2010 when I first started planning this intertwined series of fictional but highly realistic political thrillers set in Sweden, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip, that my fiction would all too soon become a very tragic reality – not least in the continuously declining, long-suffering but otherwise lovely country of Sweden. As always, all royalties from book sales go to the Alyn paediatric centre in Jerusalem.

My personal blog (www.ilyameyer.com) will remain online. It contains a couple of decades of articles – including detailed source references – in both English and Swedish. It may serve in the future as an interesting repository of historic information on socio-political developments in the Middle East and Sweden over these past 20 years or more. My blogs at the Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel have not been updated for a few years, but their content is still available online.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has followed, liked and/or otherwise engaged in discussion with me over these past years. It’s been an interesting, rewarding and at times frustrating ride.

Returned at the end of last week to Sweden after spending three months in Israel.

Israel took the Coronavirus pandemic extremely seriously. Restrictions, lockdown, fines for breaking quarantine and more.

Israelis have paid a heavy economic price for these draconian measures.

But they have by and large stayed safe, and they have survived. At least physically.

Sweden’s population is about the same size as Israel’s. But Sweden is about 22 times larger than Israel is. So its infection and fatality rates in this much more sparsely populated country should be significantly lower.

The truth, however, is the very opposite. The fatality rate in sparsely populated Sweden is about 18 times higher than in densely populated Israel. The infection rate in Sweden is about two and a half times higher. And the infection recovery rate in Sweden is three times lower. But this latter figure is misleading – the ratio between confirmed infections and recoveries tells a very different tale: in Israel the recovery rate is almost 86 per cent (15,000 recovered patients out of a total of 17,500 infected people at the time of writing), whereas the recovery rate in Sweden is just 12 per cent (5,000 recoveries out of a total of 42,000 cases for the same period).

Arriving in Sweden last weekend after three months, it was easy to see why the Coronavirus is rampant here, why Israel (along with most of Europe) is about two months ahead of Sweden in combating the disease.

Border police examined our passports as we entered the terminal building, on the floor by the doorway, not in their customary glassed-in booths. We stood in line by the door. Not one officer wore a mask. I handed over my passport and instinctively took a step back so as not to be too close to the unprotected officer, as much for her sake as mine, but i couldn’t step back more than about 30 cm as the next passenger in line was right behind me, and that’s how densely packed the entire queue was.

Driving home, we did not see anyone wearing a mask. We got home to see our neighbours sitting on the grass enjoying a picnic. They sat about 30 cm apart, several families together. Children were playing ‘tag’ on the green. The term “social distancing” has apparently not made its way into Sweden’s consciousness.

People were sniggering at our masks. We’d just arrived from what was arguably one of the safest countries on Earth, to what is today widely regarded as the European epicentre of the disease. Mentally, psychologically, we’d stepped right into the uninformed, ignorant Middle Ages.

We flew from Israel via Germany to Sweden. But we cannot make that same journey in reverse – neither Germany nor Israel will allow Swedes to enter. Neither will any other European country. Neighbouring Denmark and Norway have locked their borders with Sweden.

It’s an indictment on the failed “Swedish social experiment”, whose salient point appeared to be to infect as many people as quickly as possible and let the strong survive. The fact that a massively disproportionate number of Sweden’s elderly have been killed off – and yes, I knowingly use the active form of the verb – is unofficially being seen as a financial benefit. After all, they were “just” pensioners, costing the nation their regular monthly pensions without any longer paying into the system. It’s a net financial gain for the Swedish government. You’d be hard pressed to find a government more devoid of empathy than that of Sweden.

Sweden’s dedication to the unproven “herd immunity” concept meant that parents who kept their children at home were threatened with legal action for failing to comply with compulsory schooling legislation. This in a country where Muslim schoolchildren routinely flout the very same legislation, leaving classes whenever Christianity, Judaism or Israel are discussed. And yes, they do so without threat of legal action.

As fears grow overseas of a possible second wave of the infection, Sweden is still struggling with an alarming increase in its first wave.

It doesn’t bode well for a population that has received no guidance, legislation, medication, testing, or plans for handling the social, financial, personal, or commercial and employment losses that continue to escalate on a daily basis.

Most observers acknowledge that dictatorships likes North Korea, Syria, the Yemen and the Palestinian Authority are the epitome of “failed states”. To that list can be added Sweden – only most Swedes are too busy enjoying the early summer weather to notice.

Pesach/Passover 2020 will go down in the annals of history as a unique event.

The Coronavirus pandemic put an effective stop to millennia of Jewish ritual and tradition surrounding the family-oriented customs of this wonderful festival so rich in meaning and history.

Pesach is the festival when among other things, we remember the plagues that were inflicted upon the Jewish nation’s enemies – at the same time as a dreadful viral plague is today afflicting all nations throughout the entire world.

True to Jewish custom, no challenge is regarded as insurmountable, but rather as an opportunity.

So too Pesach 2020. In a marked departure from custom, Jews the world over stayed within their own nuclear families to celebrate this festival – there was none of the longed-for traditional gathering of the extended family to celebrate together as in millennia past. Here in Israel, in particular, this was done by legal decree – the police actually imposed a sixteen-hour curfew to prevent people from moving around on Pesach to prevent the spread of the virus. But by and large that curfew wasn’t really necessary – sound common sense dictated that people stayed at home and celebrated alone in their small nuclear families.

Only they didn’t. Because from the balconies of every apartment block, from the gardens of every private villa throughout the land, people left their dining rooms to sing together – yet separately, each remaining with the safe confines of their own homes – the traditional songs of Pesach.

The nation of Israel locked down, each family in its own home – yet all those families, all “am Israel” (“the people of Israel”) – uniting together in song and prayer at the same time. In Petach Tikva, Yavne, Haifa, Ashkelon, Beer Sheva, Eilat, Afula. Separate, yet firmly welded together in age-old tradition and unity.

” Pesach 2020 was the Passover festival that

celebrated humanity in the most trying of times. “

The Jewish nation has a history of coming together in adversity. The Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is a dreadful threat, it has cost and is still costing countless lives the world over. It is no respecter of religion, ethnicity, politics, national borders, social status or financial wealth. In Israel, like every other difficulty that has been thrown in this young nation’s path, the pandemic was seen as a challenge rather than an obstacle. Because every problem merely opens the door to potential solutions to that problem – solutions waiting to be identified, discovered, created, fine-tuned and implemented.

Pesach 2020 was very different in Israel. Just as it was in Jewish communities the world over, where depending on religious affiliation some communities even held their traditional Pesach “seder” online via Zoom, instantly uniting distant family members through the wonders of the Internet.

The Coronavirus pandemic reminds us all that we may sometimes feel lonely, but that when push comes to shove, we do not have to be alone – we can pull together, think creatively, act with empathy, perhaps even bend the rules a teeny-weeny bit to make things work. Because ultimately life is not about blind dogma, it’s about celebrating and nurturing humanity.

Pesach 2020 was the Passover festival that celebrated humanity in the most trying of times.

Hopefully we will all take a portion of this humanity with us as we continue with our lives for the rest of the year.

The Iranian regime that shot down a Ukrainian passenger jetliner and bulldozed the crash site to cover up its mistake, now admits that it did fire a missile at the passenger aircraft, killing all 176 people on board.

First the regime wasted valuable time denying all responsibility.

Then it attempted to destroy all evidence at the crash site, using bulldozers to cover up the aircraft remains – even though interfering with a crime scene is itself a serious crime.

And now the regime says the downing of the passenger airliner was a regrettable “human error“.

This is the same regime that insists on its right to acquire lethal nuclear weapons…

Key take-aways:

1. The Ukrainian International Airlines jet obeyed Teheran Airport flight control tower instructions.

2. The airliner took off on the designated runway.

3. The airliner followed the flight path it was given.

4. The relatively slow-moving and large passenger airliner was ascending to its designated cruising height – it was on an ascending path.

5. Yet the trigger-happy Iranian anti-aircraft gunners who fired the missile mistook this legitimate, slow-moving, ascending, large aircraft that was on an outgoing trajectory, for an invading, fast-moving, descending, small attack aircraft on an incoming trajectory. And fired a massive surface-to-air missile, killing all 176 on board.

6. Now remember that it is these same gung-ho, trigger-happy amateurs who want to be in charge of immeasurably more lethal nuclear weapons, and the ballistic rockets to carry those weapons.

7. Of course, none of this will make the slightest difference to the UN “liberals”, the EU foot-lickers and the US Democrats who will continue to insist that it is right to support the Iranian regime.

That would be the same Iranian regime which just last month shot dead more than 1500 of their own unarmed citizens, including children, for protesting against the regime. The same regime that just shot 176 passengers out of the air and denied any culpability even while the stricken aircraft, engulfed in flames, was plummeting to earth where it exploded in a massive fireball.

Go on, Democrats and “liberals”, follow the lead of the idiot Swedish foreign minister Ann Linde: reward the Iranian regime for this latest crime with an EU embassy in Teheran. Last time the mullahs slaughtered their own citizens, US president Obama rewarded them with a few billion dollars in unmarked bills. Surely these latest killings merit at least an embassy?

The US Democratic Party chooses voluntarily not to kick Ilhan Omar out of the party, despite her repeated expressions of gross anti-Semitism.

Just yesterday, Ilhan Omar said it was “unfair” of US President Donald Trump to impose sanctions against Iran because this is “economic warfare” which hits hard at ordinary hardworking Iranian citizens.

At the same time, however, Ilhan Omar is an avid supporter of sanctions against the Jewish state of Israel for precisely the same reason – because it hits hard at ordinary hardworking Israeli citizens. Omar is a rabid proponent of the anti-Semitic BDS sanctions movement (BDS stands for “Boycott Divestment and SANCTIONS”) that targets Israel and only Israel, and is accordingly an avid supporter of “economic warfare” against any state of the Jews – by her very own definition.

Since the Democratic Party is familiar with and locked in step with Ilhan Omar’ anti-Semitic stance, and since the party takes no steps to admonish her for her frequent racist transgressions, it is safe to deduce that today the Democratic Party is a hotbed of rabid anti-Semitism.

Not every single member, of course, but sufficient numbers of the leading party elite and politburo to cement the Democratic Party’s emerging reputation as a specifically anti-Jewish organisation.

Because there is one thing that unites Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Bernie Sanders and a whole host of controversial leading Democratic Party figures: their animosity towards the Jewish state and Jews in general.

And, remarkably, their increasing animosity towards the USA as they instead side with the terrorist regime of Iran, which has threatened, kidnapped and murdered countless American civilians and US service personnel in multiple countries. This situation bears repeating for the full impact of its enormity: in the ongoing existential stand-off between the USA and Iran, in which Iran for 40 years has killed countless American civilians and service personnel as part of its proudly publicised military campaign to crush the United States of America, the Democratic Party sides with the Iranian regime rather than with American citizens.

In everyday English this is known as treason. In times of war, which state one might reasonably argue characterises the relationship between Iran and the USA as the Iranian regime kills Americans and the US responds by taking out leading Iranian war criminals, treason is usually punished by either internment or the death sentence.

The Democratic Party may want to reconsider its unhealthy relationship with Ilhan Omar, and its sick obsession with demonising the Jewish state of Israel and ONLY Israel.

Or deserve the reputation it is fast cementing for itself.

Very worried today.

I need to buy some wood to complete an upcycling project I’m working on at home.

But to transport the wood I’ll need to use my car, which I actually use very sparingly. I generally use my cycle (with trailer when necessary) for just about everything else.

Question: Am I even allowed to use my car without first asking and receiving St. Greta’s permission? She’s currently out in mid-Atlantic on a sailing-boat paid for by someone else and fitted with a fossil-fuel powered auxiliary engine (the boat’s hull and most of its fittings are made of ecologically unsound petroleum-based materials) and I can’t get hold of her without using my Israeli-powered satellite communication devices – and we all know that nothing Israeli is ever ethical or morally justified, right? So that means I can’t get hold of her to secure that all-important permission to complete my eco-friendly project.

I could of course always seek the approval of the Green Party. But yesterday I found out they are still completely absorbed in producing legislation prohibiting the sale of products made by Jews (and only products made by Jews) in the Jewish provinces of Samaria and Judea (as the name indicates, Judea is the province of the Jews).

So what to do? I’m almost finished with my upcycling project, but need that wood to put the finishing touches to it prior to installation.

On the one hand, upcycling is the ultimate environmentally friendly way of living – and many of the features in my home are the result of my dedication to upcycling, recycling and repurposing.

But on the other hand, if I can’t get hold of St. Greta, I’m going to commit a sin, possibly even break the law, by using my own car which I paid for out of my own after-tax income and which I park in my own parking space which I pay for out of my own salary, and refuel with petroleum paid for out of my own wallet after income tax is deducted every month from my meagre pension. St. Greta, on the other hand, is unreachable because she is out in mid-Atlantic on an ecologically unsound synthetic-hulled vessel paid for by other people, backed up by a fossil-fuel powered engine whose fuel, should it be needed, will be financed by other people’s taxed income.

Her trip from North America to Europe is fully – completely – funded by other people. Every nautical mile of St. Greta’s voyage is being meticulously logged and blogged (with suitable editing, of course) using state-of-the-art electronic technology that relies on environmentally unsound components in high-tech electronic devices, for transmission over the airwaves up to a satellite in the upper atmosphere before that data is then bounced back to receivers on Earth. Of course, the satellite that permits the St. Greta circus to deliver round-the-clock coverage was only ever put into orbit thanks to immense quantities of fuel being used to propel its carrier rocket into the atmosphere – but let’s not get bogged down in unpleasant detail.

So it’s anyone’s guess who is living a more environmentally sound life, St. Greta and her massively funded PR retinue as it travels all over the world, including flying boat crews across the Atlantic (!), or I in my little eco-tech apartment paid for all by myself without any help from anyone apart from my own hard work over the years.

It’s a serious quandary.

Yalla, I’ve made up my mind. I’ll go for it and risk jail and the wrath of the Greens, who are increasingly coming across in an unpleasant shade of brown reminiscent of recent history dating back just 80 years ago. Who knows, they may even be so busy working on their anti-Semitic (sorry, that should of course be anti-Israel) legislation that they won’t even notice.

After all, nobody pays attention to little me, I don’t have a private armada of ocean-going vessels at my command, I don’t field an entire army of PR professionals to convey my thoughts to a global audience on taxpayer-funded TV and radio stations, or government-subsidised regime-loyal newspapers.

Nonetheless, perhaps a few people will read this and agree with me, even if that’s where it rests.

What do you take with you when you go shopping? Money, credit card, shopping list, grocery bags? Check. And, if you live in Sweden, also a bulletproof vest and/or stab-vest.

The new Sweden:

Supermarket personnel being issued with bulletproof and stab-proof vests.

Yes, you read right.

No, there is no martial law in Sweden. On the contrary, the government and its loyal taxpayer-funded media continue to claim all is well and that drawing attention to this situation is an act of racism.

Which must mean that the government and its loyal media know or suspect that attacks against supermarket staff are carried out by non-Swedes, which nobody else assumes without evidence.

Which in turn makes the Swedish government and its loyal media genuine racists.

Meanwhile, attacks against supermarkets, hospitals, schools, homes, restaurants, cars, women, young boys, young girls, essential infrastructure, police officers’ families (yes, you read right), ambulance and fire service staff – all this and more continues unabated.

The government is instead preoccupied with imposing a punitive tax on the use of plastic bags – in a Sweden where recycling of plastic has already reached virtually 100% efficiency, in a Sweden that has long led the rest of the world in viable clean-tech.

After the electoral revolution takes place here – and it will – it is to be hoped that several dozen heads will (figuratively) roll on charges of treason. What this succession of governments and their boot-licking, enforced taxpayer-funded media slaves have done is nothing short of treacherous.

And they know it. Which is why Sweden’s politicians and media are now literally fighting for their (professional and financial) lives: either they win and continue perpetrating the biggest social experiment and economic scam in this country’s history, or they lose – and lose everything, for all time to come. They know which side their bread is buttered, they’re fighting hard and dirty to defend their place at the trough.